Thomas Paine

When men yield up the privilege of thinking, the last shadow of liberty quits the horizon.

Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it.

If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace.

An army of principles can penetrate where an army of soldiers cannot.

A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right.

The instant formal government is abolished, society begins to act. A general association takes place, and common interest produces common security.

Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and tortuous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the word of a demon than the word of a God. It...has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind.

Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.

He that rebels against reason is a real rebel, but he that in defence of reason rebels against tyranny has a better title to Defender of the Faith, than George the Third.

Belief in a cruel God makes a cruel man.

My country is the world, and my religion is to do good.

Those who want to reap the benefits of this great nation must bear the fatigue of supporting it.

Persecution is not an original feature in any religion but it is always the strongly marked feature of all religions established by law.

All the tales of miracles, with which the Old and New Testament are filled, are fit only for impostors to preach and fools to believe.

Is it more probable that nature should go out of her course or that a man should tell a lie? We have never seen, in our time, nature go out of her course. But we have good reason to believe that millions of lies have been told in the same time. It is therefore at least millions to one that the reporter of a miracle tells a lie.

All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.

I have always strenuously supported the right of every man to his own opinion, however different that opinion might be to mine. He who denies to another this right, makes a slave of himself to his present opinion, because he precludes himself the right of changing it.

One good schoolmaster is of more use than a hundred priests.